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Overview of the MATLAB Environment

MATLAB is a high-level technical computing language and interactive environment for algorithm development, data visualization, data analysis, and numeric computation. Using the MATLAB product, you can solve technical computing problems faster than with traditional programming languages, such as C, C++, and Fortran.

You can use MATLAB in a wide range of applications, including signal and image processing, communications, control design, test and measurement, financial modeling and analysis, and computational biology. Add-on toolboxes (collections of special-purpose MATLAB functions, available separately) extend the MATLAB environment to solve particular classes of problems in these application areas.

MATLAB provides a number of features for documenting and sharing your work. You can integrate your MATLAB code with other languages and applications, and distribute your MATLAB algorithms and applications. Features include:

The MATLAB System

The MATLAB system consists of these main parts:

Desktop Tools and Development Environment

This part of MATLAB is the set of tools and facilities that help you use and become more productive with MATLAB functions and files. Many of these tools are graphical user interfaces. It includes: the MATLAB desktop and Command Window, an editor and debugger, a code analyzer, and browsers for viewing help, the workspace, and folders.

Mathematical Function Library

This library is a vast collection of computational algorithms ranging from elementary functions, like sum, sine, cosine, and complex arithmetic, to more sophisticated functions like matrix inverse, matrix eigenvalues, Bessel functions, and fast Fourier transforms.

The Language

The MATLAB language is a high-level matrix/array language with control flow statements, functions, data structures, input/output, and object-oriented programming features. It allows both "programming in the small" to rapidly create quick programs you do not intend to reuse. You can also do "programming in the large" to create complex application programs intended for reuse.

Graphics

MATLAB has extensive facilities for displaying vectors and matrices as graphs, as well as annotating and printing these graphs. It includes high-level functions for two-dimensional and three-dimensional data visualization, image processing, animation, and presentation graphics. It also includes low-level functions that allow you to fully customize the appearance of graphics as well as to build complete graphical user interfaces on your MATLAB applications.

External Interfaces

The external interfaces library allows you to write C/C++ and Fortran programs that interact with MATLAB. It includes facilities for calling routines from MATLAB (dynamic linking), for calling MATLAB as a computational engine, and for reading and writing MAT-files.

  


Recommended Products

Includes the most popular MATLAB recorded presentations with Q&A sessions led by MATLAB experts.

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